Why are so many on here married or have boy/girl friends?

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Pileated woodpecker
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11 Sep 2014, 8:38 pm

NiceCupOfTea wrote:
Can't be bothered lying, so I'm gonna admit I'm 39 and have never been in a romantic or sexual relationship. I'm also female, but I don't think I've seen a single female on this site who doesn't have a boyfriend or husband. (Apologies if there are a few and I've missed you.)


Internet. Basically all my relationships have originated on the Internet. I'm very social and outspoken on online forums and I use that to establish relationships that I can take to "real life".



MjrMajorMajor
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11 Sep 2014, 8:42 pm

Internet. Basically all my relationships have originated on the Internet. I'm very social and outspoken on online forums and I use that to establish relationships that I can take to "real life".[/quote]

+1. Met my husband via internet before Match.com existed. I express myself better in writing than in person.



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11 Sep 2014, 8:56 pm

MjrMajorMajor wrote:
I express myself better in writing than in person.


Ha! I can barely bring myself to ask the store clerk where the milk is located; but online I'm a "take charge" guy. I have started mailing lists, discussion groups, IRC channels, misc support groups, etc, that have attracted and helped thousands of people. Almost every day I get a friend request from strangers looking for my support groups on Facebook. I'm the center of attention online; but when it comes to real life social meetings, I sit in a corner and don't say anything.



B19
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11 Sep 2014, 9:39 pm

Why?

To quote Tony Attwood again:

ASD women predominantly tend to choose to form relationships with ASD men, however ASD men predominantly tend to form relationships with NT women (presumably because the NT wives and girlfriends negotiate the social world for them).

If all of that is true, and I agree with Attwood that it is, then logically and numerically the most limited possibilities affect ASD women - the pool is very small. Comparatively, ASD men have a huge potential pool of NT partners (though not all learn to swim in it, obviously).

Nearly all of my relationships have been with ASD men and my current relationship is the same. He is considerably younger than me and not at all ageist, and we find it easy to accept each other as we are -for example, he understands if I need to stop conversing from temporary overload and I understand when he gets up and paces around the living room. We don't judge each other negatively for being who we are. He makes me feel :) No way I could have a relationship if there were only NT men as potential partners.



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11 Sep 2014, 9:51 pm

Marybird wrote:
I had a child, but I was never married. I didn't know how to have a proper relationship.
Yes, but having a child means that you did attract someone even if the involvement with him did not last. Some here are asking how anyone on the spectrum even meets anyone at all in the first place, or attracts them, in order to have any moment at all of involvement with another person. Clearly some of us achieve that much even if nothing lasts.

I've had relationships but nothing that lasted. For some the problem is meeting anyone to start with. For others, meeting gets happening one way or another but the sustaining fails. Neither is a bed of roses.



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11 Sep 2014, 10:14 pm

BirdInFlight wrote:
Marybird wrote:
I had a child, but I was never married. I didn't know how to have a proper relationship.
Yes, but having a child means that you did attract someone even if the involvement with him did not last. Some here are asking how anyone on the spectrum even meets anyone at all in the first place, or attracts them, in order to have any moment at all of involvement with another person. Clearly some of us achieve that much even if nothing lasts.

If you are an attractive young woman, men will hit on you.
I was emotionally like a child, easily taken advantage of.



MatchingBlues
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11 Sep 2014, 11:04 pm

Social skills did not enable me to secure the only two serious relationships I've had. My lack of good social skills is what complicated both relationships and got me scorn from the men I was dating. My first boyfriend put it perfectly: "Frankly, you embarrass me. The things you go through and the way I see you act sometimes, it just makes me wish you could go away and die. I would care, but frankly, it would hurt too much to."

I never have had a problem with men finding me attractive and proposing a relationship. These are usually guy friends I have had for a while. We talk a lot over email and chat, but I don't really have the time to interact in person all that much. They seemed to take it well when I declined their invitations. I've never had a problem meeting men in other settings who may find me attractive and ask for my phone number. I'm pretty awkward. Declining when I'm not interested is pretty awkward.

I am not planning on being in a relationship right now. I don't know when I will be in my next relationship, but I am comfortable not searching for one.



billiscool
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11 Sep 2014, 11:12 pm

edit--



Last edited by billiscool on 11 Sep 2014, 11:55 pm, edited 3 times in total.

rebbieh
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11 Sep 2014, 11:43 pm

I have a boyfriend. He's NT (as far as we both know) and I've got AS. We've been together for 3.5 years and believe me, sometimes I don't even understand how we've been together for that long. When we met we bonded over a mutual interest, which was easy for me to include him in. I guess that's how it all started.

I really like him but it's been incredibly difficult at times and it's most certainly not a "normal" relationship. By not "normal" I mean we don't see each other as often as most people in a relationship do, there's not as much physical contact between us as in most NT relationships, etc. That's been very hard for my boyfriend and it's not until recently that he's understood that I'm not being rude/lazy/unfair/something when I tell him I need to spend time alone. He stays with me because he loves me. He's had to learn how I function and what I can and can't do, what my routines are and what I need to feel safe. Sometimes it feels very unfair to put him in that situation and I feel inadequate sometimes, but we like each other so we work as hard as we can to make it work.

The point is that even if people on the spectrum do have partners, it doesn't necessarily mean it's easy.



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12 Sep 2014, 1:44 am

BirdInFlight wrote:
babybird wrote:
I've often wondered the same thing myself.
Didn't you say you have a child, babybird? You must have managed to attract someone.


It's complicated and it wasn't a proper relationship. :)

I don't understand about sexual relationships and I certainly don't understand about marriage. I've never even been close to getting married.


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12 Sep 2014, 5:48 am

In the past I was never able to establish contact with a man I felt attracted to, it was always guys approaching me.
Mostly they were the abusive kind or they just suddenly left me for no apparent reason after I had formed
a strong attachment to them, which left me totally gutted for long periods of time.
Right now I am in a very happy marriage lasting already 12 years with an NT man I met at my workplace. Guess I was just lucky.
He loves my Aspie traits, has no problem putting up with all my quirks and peculiarities and when I found out quite recently
that I'm on the spectrum, he said he could always tell that there was something unusual about me.
He's socializing and networking the NT world for me, is very protective, always keeps people off my back whom I don't
want to meet and we never get into fights with each other. The only drawback is that I'm asexual and although I enjoy the cuddles I
get a bit grossed out about that bizarre sexual human mating procedure. But I've learned to get into it for the sake of bonding.
I just enter into some kind of a dreamlike trance state which makes everything a bit surreal. And he is a very considerate guy who bothers
me as little as possible with his desires. Such a sweetheart. I just wish there were more men like this in the world. And I had met him
earlier before I got this chronic-fatigue stress-damage...



felinesaresuperior
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12 Sep 2014, 6:57 am

i'm 48 and had only had one night stands, and now i cant even be bothered with those.
i cant stand to be around people for too long. it drives me crazy. it's not just being shy, although it's that too.



syzygyish
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12 Sep 2014, 7:26 am

Why so many married in here or have boyfriends/girlfriends?


It's a skewed statistic

being in a relationship gives the people in it optimism, positism and a general feeling of acceptance

They tend to post more

People that aren't in a relationship tend to be more negative, insular and antisocial

They tend to post less


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12 Sep 2014, 9:05 am

I am female and I don't have a boyfriend, let alone husband.



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12 Sep 2014, 9:35 am

NiceCupOfTea wrote:
Can't be bothered lying, so I'm gonna admit I'm 39 and have never been in a romantic or sexual relationship. I'm also female, but I don't think I've seen a single female on this site who doesn't have a boyfriend or husband. (Apologies if there are a few and I've missed you.)

How do you have the social abilities to attract a long-term mate? Genuinely curious, 'cos I was always desperately shy around the opposite sex. Still am. Never known what to say, never been able to flirt, and - pretty obviously, really - have never been able to attract anyone enough to want to be my partner.

God, my life couldn't be any more tragic and sad if I tried. Utterly pathetic. I fail even at being Asperger's, or whatever.
You never know what attracts a person. I am married but not because of anything I tried to do to get him. He just liked me and saw some kind of potential in me, something I did not even know I had. I think we tend to to focus on outward things and don't realize that there are deep characteristics about a person that have nothing to do with surface appearances and social know hows. If you can see past those things in someone and see who they really are, If you can really see their heart and their courage and all the good things in them past all the behavioral surface stuff, then you might just become very attracted to that person and want to be with them. Being married to me is not easy. My husband has felt the urge to give up many times and almost has but he sees what is deep in me and I in him and that is what keeps us together because if it was just left up to the behavioral surface and communication issues we would have separated a long time ago.


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MehruneMath
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12 Sep 2014, 9:39 am

I'm male and twenty one years of age; I've never had a girlfriend, nor have I ever made physical contact. I would certainly enjoy a relationship though. It has nothing to do with my appearance; it is my personality. Females used to flirt with me often in high school. I'm not sure if I have autism, nonetheless I'm completely positive I'm above the average intelligence level; I believe this is why.


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